FAQ: Xbox 360 Error Codes Explained, If you have an error code, read this! Options

[JediMasterChad]

Hey everyone-

I've had my 360 since launch day, November whatever 2005, and within the last couple weeks it finally bricked on me (and right before Guitar Hero). So, I called MS and they said I'm out of warranty and I wanted to try and fix it on my own as I don't have the 130 bucks to pay them.

Mine won't even boot to the dashboard, and when I try to get the error code it seems to come out as "0203" which isn't even listed on the first page. It blinks 4, then 2, then 4, then 3. So I know I'm doing it right, but no idea what is wrong. I have done the towel trick, and that will fix it for a few days but then it goes back to the blinking red. Removing my hard drive does nothing, and when it boots properly, none of my data is corrupt, my gamercard loads fine, it still saves everything, etc.

I've noticed that the DVD drive is what makes a majority of the noise while the console is on. If I'm just tinkering around in the dashboard or listening to music I have on my hard drive, it's very quiet, but if I'm playing a game, the drive is quite loud. Almost like it is spinning too fast or working too hard, I'm not sure.

So, any ideas? I'm going to crack it open if that's what it takes, as it won't even start up..but I'm not sure what fix to even start with.

[rootz]

Here's a story of multiple error codes...

First I got 0021 occasionally but the console worked usually with a few restarts. Then later it turned to give me constantly 0102.

Then I did the famous towel trick, first it gave me 0022 which is the GPU overheating; then I let it cool down for a few moments and it actually worked for a few hours after the towel trick (cold solder, I'm sure) but for not too long; during gameplay the console hang: the screen jammed and gave those already well-known gpu-error boxes in the screen. Then I shut it down and it gave again 0102. This was two days ago.

Today I turned it on; it worked and I started to download content from the marketplace. It hang again after a few minutes; the same gpu-error as described above. Then I turned it off and on again. It gave 0020 - what is this? It can't be overheating because the console was on only for a few minutes (like less than five). After a restart it now gives me again the good ol' 0102.

And yes, I've already called support and the repair process has been started so the console will go to repair in less than a week, I just wanted to post this ridiculous story of multiple error codes. :-)

[sandmanza]

I have the most odd 0102, one of the 3 things will happen

A) the red lights of doom
freezing about 5 mins into game
C) working 100% for however long the 360 is on.

I had it plugged into same multiplug as my pc and I had a power failure, my pc power supply started acting up (wouldnt switch on everytime) and I know 0102 isnt a power supply error but is it possible that it could be ?

[KennethKaniff308]

First off I would like to thank xbox-scene for all their wonderful resources and all the other dedicated websites out there that want to help the consumer. Microsoft wants to milk us all for every penny we are worth to them.


I recently had my xbox start giving me the dreaded 0102 code and was dumbfounded by its sudden appearance . Looking all over the net for reasons why I came here. I heard about the "towel trick" and doubted this would work. Deciding "what the hell, I'll try anything as I'm out of warranty" I "put her in the oven" so to speak. After removing towel I powered on and it worked temporarily. This led me to believe there was a cold solder joint on the gpu as has been talked about in several forums I've visited. BTW......I would not recommend towel trick to anyone as has been said before that the heat is horrible for your components. I proceeded to disassemble and remove gpu heatsink. After that I removed mounting bolts from heatsink. Then I used a steel razor blade(there are way better ways to do this I'm sure, I was in hurry and don't recommend this) and shaved the aluminum down slightly around holes in heatsink. This was done so I could screw the mounting bolts into the heatsink itself farther than they were originally. Also, I took the x-clamp and bent it slightly outwards(very carefully) so as to put more pressure on heatsink when reinstalled. Had to have help from a buddy putting back on as it took a lot of force to get back on. Put 360 back together and proceeded to boot. Dashboard loaded first time I booted(it had been to the point it wouldn't display anything before fix) and I proceeded to play 6 titles for at least an hour a piece. Hasn't froze one time since and all my backups play flawlessly also.



P.S. It's true, Microsoft doesn't give a crap about you if you've opened your console. Kid on phone at service number literally told me they wouldn't even repair a console if I PAID for any repair needed(I wasn't asking for warranty service, just repair service). He said(and I qoute) "You're screwed and we won't do anything to help you make your console work because you've opened it. Great business practices eh? Telling the consumer that they can't PAY for their console to be repaired under any circumstance because case was opened. Glad I didn't pay now..............

Forgot to mention in last post that I very, very, very carefully cleaned old thermal paste(which there was way to much in the first place) off of the gpu and heatsink and applied Arctic Silver 5 before reinstalling gpu heatsink. This all might sound a little complicated to some, but if you take your time and be careful you will be ok. My warranty was up so I was left with little other choice than to try to fix my brick myself.

[rebuad_neb2004]

I wanted to try and repair a broken XBOX 360 since I have had such success with XBOX1. So I bought a bricked XBOX 360 that had a faulty DVD drive in it... It was out of warranty and M$ wanted the $130 to fix it... "Ya right!!!" I started by testing what the thing would do. It would play music from CD but wouldn't load DVDs or any games... I decided to try and adjust the DVD voltage pots and BINGO, played a DVD just fine... I then put in a game and it froze at the first graphic that popped up. I shut the console off and received two red lights with an error code of 0110. So I shut it off and called M$ to see if they would at least tell me what the codes mean and the guy told me, and I quote, " if M$ wanted me to know they would have put it in the documentation" Big thanx goes out to a corporation that is totally dedicated to customer service. So I found on here that it means there is an overheating problem... I then let it cool and took the motherboard out to inspect it and I found that it got so hot so quick that the resisters on the bottom under the GPU had actually fallen off. Not all of them but about six. I then found that one was about to fall off under the CPU. I realized that the solder was not uniform between the resisters which leads me to believe that it is a manufacturing defect... Some if not most suffer from this defect I would imagine... So I decided to try turning it back on with the missing resisters and low and be hold, it came on and then froze during a game. I turned it off and back on to find the T.R.O.D. with the code 0220 I then tried a few resets and came up with a code of 0022 then 0110. I then said screw it it was free anyways and bridged all the connections where the resisters are supposed to be and believe it or not the thing came back on and froze again with the error code 0011.

Most of these codes are overheating codes but it makes me wonder about what caused it, "besides me going in and messing around". I have concluded that while the console is warm the resisters that are not securely soldered to the board will break there connection. Then they will act like a wrench in the gear... They may not cause a problem immediately but they will in fact be the force behind the death of a console. When I get my own XBOX I will ride the warranty and the day after it expires I will crack my case and rework any of those resisters that look like the could be a problem. I will then mod the heat sinks so as to keep it cool. I hope that my adventure helps in some way...




P.S. If anyone has any suggestions on how I should put what little of the XBOX is left to good use with testing or reading chips and knows how to do it, I will gladly give my time and try!

[tarrbot]

sandmanza states:

I have the most odd 0102, one of the 3 things will happen

A) the red lights of doom
freezing about 5 mins into game
C) working 100% for however long the 360 is on.

I had it plugged into same multiplug as my pc and I had a power failure, my pc power supply started acting up (wouldnt switch on everytime) and I know 0102 isnt a power supply error but is it possible that it could be ?

I think I know what's happening but am not sure. If you can verify what I'm saying is accurate, that'd be great.

OK, first off, I bought a "broken" 360 with the intent on fixing its problem. It was a 0102 error and I applied the heat gun trick to it and all seemed fine.

Mine would play for hours after the fix with no issues, unless I played a heavy GPU intensive game. Then it would play for about 5 minutes and freeze. I was all set to redo the heat gun trick thinking I was too conservative in its application that it might not have worked flawlessly.

What I discovered upon taking the 360 back apart was that I had not applied thermal compound to one portion of the GPU die. There are 2 dies on the GPU chip--a large one and a smaller one. I had overlooked the smaller one for some reason.

What this leads me to believe is that on normal 2D games, the larger die is the primary GPU while the smaller die is for 3D--since that makes the most sense of my symptoms.

Instead of resorting to the heat gun again, I just reapplied thermal compound to the dies correctly and did some testing. I'm still in the middle of testing but I did find that after the thermal compound was applied correctly that the games (no matter what I was playing) played for hours but would still lock up on a heavy GPU game after about 2 hours.

I reapplied the heat gun trick last night and have a friend testing the system today for multiple hours and hours since I have a day job and don't have the time.

So, what I'm wondering is when you notice the system playing for hours on end, what type of game are you playing? When it locks up after 5 minutes, what type of game are you playing?

Could it be the game type?

Also, I wanted to thank everyone here for their input as its been invaluable to me. Thanks.

[KennethKaniff308]

Well, 3 lights are back. I probably got about 10 hours of play after I had messed with the gpu heatsink. Gettin blocks after a couple minutes of playin saints row. Doesn't matter which game. The same thing happens on them all, backups and originals. I know its not the dvd drive as I can backup all my games. Gonna try checkin out heatsinks again this morning. This console makes my temples pound like no other..............


Will keep all updated on success or no.............

[dragunz]

i just got a E 73.

anything i can do?

[mr2000jp]

found out what error 0020 is , after a long time of experimenting , i found out that its a bad connection in the vga/bus chip , yes the ati chip connections onto the board is weak (as always) and it some times cracks open when the heat raises in (some cases) , and in other cases whaen thae board is moved ,bent , or some thing which makes the pins disconnect ,
so , to solve this problem , (for the very experienced professionals only)
you have to heat the chip with a heat gun on a very high heat , but be careful not to burn it , dont use any flux or paste at all , and dont forget to clean the old compound paste , its not good to heat it while so , this will make the connections get soldereed correctly , but belive me its really hard to to know when to stop heating , thats why just a well experienced guy with heat gun should do it , and never ever touch the chip while its hot , if you did ,it will definetly be blasted , the solder balls might move and make a disaster , and you dont want to remove the whole chip and redesolder it , its almost impossible

[rocky69]

what temp should I have the heat gun at. I dont want to melt anything because mine can go to 1300F.

[JakeDunn]

What this leads me to believe is that on normal 2D games, the larger die is the primary GPU while the smaller die is for 3D--since that makes the most sense of my symptoms.

Not that its helping the thread (sorry mods), but I just wanted to correct something about the Xenos. All rendering is done by the larger die which is then sent over to the daughter die (eDRAM) for added effects like AA, z alpha blending, etc, which is then sent over to the system memory and so forth

In short, X360 doesnt have a gpu that separates 2D and 3D applications, just wanted to clear that up

[AlexGW]

I've got ahold of a 0020 error code unit, havn't had a chance to look at it as of yet, recieved the error right on power up (from cold) so i'm not sure about it being tied to overheating, anyone else here ever had a unit with 0020?

This post has been edited by AlexGW: Apr 24 2007, 06:35 PM

[skibum3027]

Im getting a 0020, have no fucking clue what it means.

I think i figured out exactly what code 0020 is. There isn't a particular error associated with overheating. Instead, there are different areas where an internal error can occur, which are likely caused by overheating.

Each code refers to a certain area of circuitry where the problem exists.

Code 0020 seems to refer to the circuitry between the Microsoft XSB chip and the AV port of the 360 on the motherboard.

This also explains why people who receive a code 0020 usually experience difficulties (4 flashing red lights) before the 'fatal' 3 flashing red lights.

Having not experienced any of the other errors (besides 0020) personally, I haven't taken the time to find where exactly on the motherboard the other errors take place.

Anyway, having the codes control different sections of circuitry makes more sense for Microsoft. That way, when they receive a broken unit, all they have to do is check the code and repair that area of the motherboard.

This is just a theory. I'll update exactly what the problem is when i have a chance to address it with the right tools later tonight.

I've got ahold of a 0020 error code unit, havn't had a chance to look at it as of yet, recieved the error right on power up (from cold) so i'm not sure about it being tied to overheating, anyone else here ever had a unit with 0020?

read my post above

This post has been edited by skibum3027: Apr 25 2007, 09:08 PM

[AlexGW]

Thanks for that skibum, good luck with your findings..

Another unit I now have is giving the 0002 error code, but doesn't reflect the definition specified on this topic. The unit in question doesn't boot up correctly (fans will spin up for a second then switch off, the PSU light remains Orange. BUT the ROL comes up with the 3 reds to give the 0002 code.

Notice to those with the 0002 error - The x clamp replacement bolts and washers doesn't help.

[TCXO]

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